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Machine generated contents note: 1. The Right to Two Cities -- An Ancient Question -- An Early Modern Answer -- From Overlapping to Coinciding Cities -- Modern Liberalism, or Democratic Cant Theorized -- "Democratic Individuality" -- From "Historical Discourse" (1835) to "Self-Reliance" (1841) -- Conclusion -- 2. "Knock, and it shall be opened": Fuller's Higher Lawsuit -- The Hellenic Critique -- The Hebraic Critique -- Democracy and Conscience Incommensurable, 1839 -- 1843 -- The Masterwork: "The Great Lawsuit" (1843) -- Democracy as Despotism, 1846 -- Democracy's Revived Promise, 1846 -- 1850 -- 3. Higher Law Debates and Overlapping Cities -- The "Living North" -- Originalism -- Aspirationalism -- Proceduralism -- Conclusion -- 4. "As justice satisfies everybody": Emerson and the City of Man -- The 1840s: "Politics" Early Antislavery Writings, "Napoleon" -- The Antislavery Writings of the 1850s -- The Masterwork: The Conduct of Life (1860) -- 1862 Onward -- 5. "So we saunter toward the Holy Land": Thoreau and the City of God -- Between Self and Society -- Higher-Use Ecology -- From Civil Obedience to Disobedience -- "Slavery in Massachusetts" and Walden (1854) -- The Masterworks: "Life without Principle" "The Allegash and East Branch" "Walking" -- "Walking": The Four Facets of the City of God -- "Why Are You Out There?".

Abstract

"This is an exploration of the political thought of the American transcendentalists focusing on Emerson, Thoreau, and Fuller. They were writing at a time when the American state was thought of as sacred, the two cities of Augustine, the City of God and the City of Man, combined as one. Indeed the Augustinian metaphor was a powerful one, frequently invoked in this period. American republican democracy in the City of Man enabled citizens through their participation in the state to achieve something close to the spiritual status of the City of God. The transcendentalists, with their emphasis on the importance of individual freedom, did not accept this analysis, according to Daniel Malachuk. They looked at American democracy and saw much that did not support individual pursuit of goodness nor a society that approached the status of the City of God. For example, the continued existence of slavery hardly fit with a godly place. Malachuk argues that the separation between the City of God and the City of Man remains important to transcendentalists who thought that individuals needed to be given space by the state to pursue their individual development"-- Provided by publisher.